piteous | HOMOPHONIC 🌺 KAVEH

That's good.

[If he's allowed he will move over to lean on him, since even though he's healed enough to not be dying on the floor, he's still tired.]

Vash? [...] What's... the last thing that happened? Before we left?

[ Kaveh is allowed. Vash will support him with an arm on his shoulder, just gently steadying him. ]

Uhm... Wednesday treasure hunting which was yesterday? Is that what you mean?

[Kaveh's gaze turns searching for a moment, like it takes him a while to remember--but eventually he nods slowly.]

That's right... the maze, wasn't it? [God. He closes his eyes for a moment, lifting a hand to rub at his face. ] Sorry, there were just... so many loops.

[They were there for so fucking long.]

The maze... Don't remember much of it.

[ Because he passed out, but. Oh. He doesn't like the sound of this. ]

Loops? Like you guys would repeat the same sequence of events?

Mm. In a way. [He sighs softly.] There were so many abnormalities... we had to take care of them. But if things went wrong, we had the button. To start over.

[He--looks a little sad, then. He misses the button.]

...Death wasn't real, there. It didn't last.

That's... [ FUCKING WILD we love a library of ruina cyoa ] Morbid.

Good thing you had that button, but that also means never-ending suffering.

[SOMETIMES... THINGS HAPPEN.]

Mm. [...] They got hurt so many times. I can't--I lost track. I don't know how long we were there.

[Sometimes you're just a little guy and you watch your friends and coworkers get murdered a bajillion times.]

I don't even know how we broke through, in the end. It was the birds, and the portal, but... I don't know if anything we did made a difference.

It was the birds.

[ like what the fuck does this mean. ]

You guys made it out. That's something.

Mm. They became Apocalypse Bird. I think.

[He actually doesn't know exactly what happened he was so dead inside by that point.]

Thaaaat does not sound good.

[ HEL:P??? ]

[SOMETIMES THINGS HAPPEN...]

We couldn't do anything to it directly. We had to destroy its eggs... but then we went through the portal, and we... made it back here.

[Kind of. He thinks.]

...I keep waiting for it to start over again.

Hey... You're not there anymore. No apocalypse bird. No more looping.

[ Gives Kaveh's shoulder a light squeeze, hoping this will ground him. ]

You're here.

[ Whether that's a good thing or not, Vash doesn't say. ]

[It does help, honestly. He smiles slightly--though he closes his eyes shortly after, his expression growing a little pinched, like he's got a headache or something.]

Right. No more.

No more!

[ He watches Kaveh's expression, tilting his head over the shift. ]

Something up?

[...]

I keep hearing...

[He shakes his head.]

It's... from the facility, I think.

... Effect? I guess?

I hope they're not too distracting. Whatever I was going through lasted until the end of trial, I think.

Mm. It sounds like one of the abnormalities.

[Which is probably the only reason he's been able to fight it off, rather than just like. Knocking himself out with alcohol even though it's murder night.]

It's not as bad as the first time.

I never got to ask about that... I think I was too busy getting cursed and fighting Wolfwood.

[ i had the worst couple of weeks in this game i tell you ]

[EVERYONE REALLY SAID "HEI MUST SUFFER AND VASH GETS TO BE CAUGHT IN THE CROSSFIRE"

That makes the corner of his mouth lift, though; he doesn't really have the energy to smile, but it's something.]

Don't fight Wolfwood. [But it's not really a scolding. Really, it's more like--latching onto the thought of something tangibly connected to this place. Something to focus on before he thinks back to his first CYOA.] ...We went back to Teyvat. Nahida, Setsu, Matsui, and I.

[He's quiet for a moment, because it's sad, realizing that only he and Nahida are left.]

Too late for that.

[ bro. Anyway... Damn. He's listless because it really is half of that cyoa group wiped, then also the holder of that memory. A nod. ]

Shenhe told me a bit about it.

[ Sad. ]

[Vashwood can stay divorced because it's keeping them alive!!!!]

Mm. It seems like it was drawn from her experiences. [Sad... their bird...] After I got back... I'm not sure how to describe it. I said a lot of things without any hesitation at all--things I normally never would have. [Which really fucking sucked WEEK 1!!!] And I couldn't feel pain for a little while.

... So a little like Shenhe herself.

[ The homicidal bondage. ]

It must have sucked pretty bad. Shenhe maneuvered social interaction pretty well, but that comes with practice with her predicament.

Yes, I think so. [He hadn't learned about her ropes until after her death, but. It makes a little more sense, in hindsight.] We were children, for part of it. [...] I saw my mother. Or--what I thought was my mother.

[He's pretty sure it was an illusion or something now. But it took a while to get there.]

It wasn't like that this time. I didn't really see people I knew in the same way. I remembered this place, but it felt like we'd been there for ages, even before the loops really began.

[ ... Not Kaveh's mother, long gone, showing up again. Vash gently places his hand on Kaveh's shoulder, but tries not to talk more about it. Sometimes... Fresh mother trauma. ]

What's with the trips this week making you guys all feel like it took forever?

[ THE COINCIDENCE? ]

[(smiling_face_with_tear) It's probably fine.]

I wish I knew. I heard the other group lived through a hundred years or so. [He doesn't know they went to NML] Kazuki mentioned that he thought he'd lived a whole separate life, when he went.

[Which isn't quite the same thing but. Bad trend.]

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piteous - 2023-07-26 05:09 (UTC) - Expand